Had my first experience with HP switches (2x ProCurve 2810G) and I realized that STP is not enabled by default. I discovered this only after having already configured an Etherchannel with 3x1Gig-Links which carries just one single VLAN.
Now my questions are: should I enable STP, knowing that this setup will not expand beyond the two existing switches? I know that in Cisco switches STP "sees" an Etherchannel as a single port: is this the same thing for HP switches?
Yes, configure it, just because your port channel is good doesn't mean your entire topology necessarily is - just connect another cable between the two switches on an active VLAN and watch the badness happen.
I recommend MST (Multiple Spanning Tree) providing the switch supports it - interoperable, backwards compatible and of course, has the obvious benefit of being able to partition vlans into separate domains.
Indeed, enable spanning-tree. The 2810 is standard MST by default. Depending on how you have your trunks configured (Trunk vs. LACP), the individual ports could still create a loop. Call it insurance... you may never need it, but the one time you do and it's not there, you'll regret it.
(Other networking mistakes could also create a loop.)
Whether Cisco, HP or another provider, with any form of link aggregation, multiple physical ports are treated as a single logical port, after all that is the whole point of link aggregation. Just be careful of terminology used by OSes such as bonding or teaming since they may or may not be doing link aggregation depending on the configuration.
As to running STP, as Ricky and Olipro have said, by all means you should run it. Which flavor depends on your need, however generally keep to a "standards" based protocol. With only two switches (and probably not that many VLANs), I would think you would be fine with RST. On any larger networks, I would recommend MST, but that may be a bit of overkill in this situation and without understanding it properly you may end up creating problems.
While you may not be concerned about more than the two switches, who knows what the future will hold. Also, it helps prevent a number of problems that can be created by users.
For instance, I have run across several instances where users on a network bring in their own dumb switch to connect additional devices in their office/cubicle and decide that if one connection to the wall is good, then two must be better.
I wouldn't see any point in enabling STP in this situation. STP prevents loops between switches with multiple links. In this case you're using a trunk (in the HP parlance) which will be treated as a single link so STP would not be needed.
Yes, LACP and static trunks are viewed as a single link by ProCurves.
Don't forget to set the switch's priority so that you have a predetermined root of the tree. That is the most common STP mistake we see in the ProCurve forums.
